


Signposts

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Road to Home [13]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:11:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At every twist and turn along the road Sherlock, John, and Donna struggle with the aftermath of Sherlock's long stretch in captivity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signposts

**Author's Note:**

> I use the "Mature" rating for stories with even graphic depictions of sex between consenting adults and reserve the "Explicit" rating for rape/non-con, extreme violence, etc. This story contains graphic language. It also contains descriptions of violence of a non-sexual nature.
> 
> John and Donna's story began in "Date Mates." You may also wish to read "Anti-Clockwise," and "In Scandinavia," as they are all part of the same overall timeline.

I.  AWAKE

John nuzzled against Donna’s neck and ear with his lips, slipped his hand under the hem of her t-shirt to stroke along the smooth skin of her belly. The tickle of his fingertips across her breast made her let out a pleased-sounding little hum.

“Morning,” she murmured, shifting and stretching herself from sleep as John continued to slide his hand around under her top. “What are you up to.”

“Can we?” he breathed against her ear.

Donna lazed against the pillow, rolling her head a bit so John could kiss her throat. “Mmm, love to.”

“Ah, good.”

She pushed his hand away from her breast, gently, and said, “Let me just—“ she clicked her tongue and made a little face. “Mouthwash.”

John smiled, rolled onto his back as Donna pushed aside the blankets and swung her feet toward the floor. He watched the way she drew her long, ginger hair over one shoulder to the front, half-exposing the back of her pale neck.

“Sherlock went home?” she asked. John’s eyes followed her as she made her way around the bed toward the bathroom. She’d gone to bed very early the previous night—Christmas, she’d hosted the dinner and exhausted herself, who knew being pregnant was so tiring?—and she’d offered Sherlock the guest bedroom, then left them talking quietly in the living room.

“No, it was after midnight by the time the whiskey’d run out,” John said, “So he stayed.”

Donna stopped short near the foot of the bed, let out a startled gasp. “John.”

“What is it?” He sat halfway up, leaning on his elbow. “Is there a mouse or something?”

“Something. . .” Donna said quietly, and pointed. John kneeled up, leaned over to look. Wrapped in a blanket from the guest bedroom, curled up like a child, asleep on the floor at the foot of their bed. Sherlock.

 “Poor man,” Donna said, with a sad shake of her head.

“I’ll get him up.”

John crouched down on the floor near Sherlock’s head, brushed his fingers through Sherlock’s thick, dark curls, then let his hand come to rest on Sherlock’s shoulder.

“I’ll make coffee,” Donna offered quietly, and left the two of them there.

“Sherlock,” John said quietly, “Sherlock, wake up.” Sherlock’s lips were slightly parted, his breath was low and shallow but his brow was tense, frowning. John stroked Sherlock’s forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Wake up, now, Sherlock.”

. . .Wake up. . . Wake up. . .

“Can you wake up?”

Every muscle aching. Cold, freezing, shivering. Head throbbing. Eyelids impossibly heavy and nearly crusted shut at interior corners.

WAKE UP.

Cement pad on an otherwise packed-earth floor. Wooden walls with peeling paint, slightly rotten near the damp floor. A narrow, filthy window set high up on one wall, dim haze visible through it: dawn, dusk, or else very overcast. No sound of rain outside. No sound of anything, not even a bird.

Thirsty.

Small room, about eight feet by ten. One interior wall makeshift—newer plywood, unpainted. Door ad hoc, squat and not wide enough to be standard. No knob or latch. Surely locked from outside.

Lying on right side.  Bruised rib, possibly two. Wrists bound with blackened metal shackles, short chain between them. Not handcuffs; not plastic zip-ties. Medieval. Metal collar: heavy, locked shut with enormously thick chain, each link probably weighing a pound on its own, the whole lot threaded through a giant bolt in floor.

God so thirsty.

Flash of memory: a construction site with no crew in the middle of the afternoon. Mirari with her very good brain sitting in front of her on a tabletop, in a pool of coagulating blood. Hands everywhere, restrained, lifted. Injection, then darkness. When? At least a day, probably two. Possibly even three.

Plastic jerry can in far corner. Water! Muscles stiff, hands and fingers numb and swollen from dis-use. Struggle to sit, to kneel. . .chain from neck too short to allow sitting straight. Half drag, half crawl the few feet to reach the can, nearly weeping, hands shaking so much twisting off the cap nearly impossible. Can too heavy to lift. Tilt it. Sniff first, could be gasoline. Water. Oh thank god, water. Water and water and water and water. . .

Lie back, flat on floor. Eyes want to close. Dismal druggy haze. Surf wave of nausea. Marks on upper arms indicate having been injected several times since the Spanish safe house. Could now be as far away as Africa (unlikely). Or China (certainly possible). Or England.

_When he was nine or ten, visiting his uncle’s country estate in late summer, their cousin St. John had lured Sherlock far from the house, even past the stables and old servants’ cottages, to a machine shed that housed ancient farm implements, rusted trowels and scythes hanging from wooden pegs. St. John locked Sherlock inside, thinking that surely he would panic and perhaps even cry for his mummy. But Sherlock only lay down beneath a wooden workbench on cool, packed dirt, and watched a common orb-weaver envelop a hapless beetle in its silken threads until only the tip of one leg protruded. Eventually, Mycroft came and found him. St. John’s governess smacked his knuckles with a strap._

II. SAFE

TXT from SherlockHolmes: Hello Mrs Watson. Are you awake?

Donna was listening to a podcast about history which John had recommended because he found it fascinating and which Donna liked because it was boring enough to put her to sleep despite pregnancy-related insomnia. When the phone buzzed to life under her hand, she was grateful for an excuse to stop learning about the Mongol hordes and Attila the Hun. She was lying on her left side, as prescribed, with a complex arrangement of pillows behind her back, between her knees, under her belly. John was sound asleep beside her (damn him anyway). She maneuvered the phone so the light of the screen wouldn’t wake him.

TXT from DDDonna: Sadly yes, I am awake.

TXT from SherlockHolmes: You asked me once: would I tell you if I needed you to lock up the gun?

Donna sucked in her breath, began the tricky process of sitting up in bed.

TXT from SherlockHolmes: I need you to lock up the gun.

TXT from DDDonna: OMG

TXT from DDDonna: Are you safe?

TXT from DDDonna: Do I need to call someone?

TXT from SherlockHolmes: No.

TXT from DDDonna: No you’re not safe or no don’t need to call?

She looked at John, considered waking him, but waited for Sherlock’s reply. There was a long wait for his next text; she chewed at a hangnail on her little finger.

TXT from SherlockHolmes: Both of those.

Donna swiped to his name and tapped CALL. She picked up one of her pillows and the quilt she’d kicked off her feet earlier in the night from the foot of the bed, and padded out of the bedroom, pulling the door closed quietly behind her. Sherlock’s phone stopped ringing before the end of the first ring.

“Where’s the gun now?” she asked, before Sherlock had said a word.

“Still in John’s bedroom.”

Donna made her way to the living room sofa, deposited the bedding, paced back and forth in front of the coffee table. Slanted street-light came through the French doors; she could see well enough to move about without tripping or stubbing her toe.

“And where are you?”

“In my bedroom.”

Donna tried to detect anything unusual in Sherlock’s voice, but it was the same quiet, even baritone she was used to hearing from him. She stopped in front of the French doors, looked down the road at the traffic signal changing. “So will the gun stay in John’s bedroom until we come to get it tomorrow?”

“You come. Don’t tell John.”

“Sherlock. . .” Asking her to keep anything from John was crossing an admittedly fuzzy line. As Sherlock had come to trust her with things he (as far as Donna knew) would tell no one else, including and perhaps most especially John, Donna wanted to keep his confidences. But there had to be boundaries, didn’t there? It didn’t feel fair for Sherlock to ask this of her.

“Sorry,” Sherlock said with a sigh. “Withdrawn.”

Donna moved back to the pressing issue. “You said you’re not safe,” she prompted. There was a pause, and she settled herself onto the sofa, arranging her pillow and tossing the blanket over her bare feet.

Sherlock inhaled, and it was easy for Donna to envision his frowning, closed-eyed expression. “I find myself preoccupied with thoughts about it. John’s gun. Probably better if it weren’t here.”

“Scary thoughts,” Donna ventured.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Pet. Nights are hard.”

“Are they?”

“Sometimes.”

“For you?”

“Sometimes.” There was a pause. “Shall we talk about something pleasant?”

Sherlock hummed assent.

Donna thought a moment. “You’re well traveled; what’s your very favourite place? Don’t say—“

“Baker Street,” they said simultaneously. Sherlock mildly demanded, “Why can’t I say Baker Street?”

“It’s not in the spirit of the question,” Donna said. “Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best, most amazing place?”

“I solved some interesting serial arsons in Morocco,” Sherlock offered.

Donna mused, “Morocco’s quite exotic.”

“I suppose. Most of what I saw was already burnt to the ground. And the hotel they put me in was wretched.”

“So that’s not your _favourite_ place, obviously,” Donna said with mild amusement.

“I enjoy Tokyo. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that feels like it’s running at the right speed.”

“You must stand out a bit there,” Donna noted. “Like a giant.”

Sherlock almost-laughed, then agreed. “Head and shoulders above the fray.” She heard a shuffling sound, he was adjusting the phone. “What about you? What’s the most interesting place you’ve been?”

“Me? Oh, I’ve never been anywhere,” Donna said, waving her hand in the air despite the fact he could not see the gesture. “Ibiza once for a girls’ weekend—god, nearly twenty years ago, now—but other than that, nowhere.”

“Really.” Sherlock sounded mildly incredulous.

“Not much money for holidays when I was a kid. A rented caravan every three years or so, for a week in the summer. . .that’s the extent of my world travels. Never really had an itch to travel, like some people seem to. I’m happy to see places on the telly, and still sleep in my own bed at night.”

“So you understand why Baker Street is my favourite place, then,” he prompted.

“All right, I suppose I do. There’s a lot to be said for the comforts of home.” Donna checked the time and saw it was nearly three a.m. She was finally starting to feel like she could sleep. Of course, she’d stay with Sherlock as long as he needed her, but as she continued to muse, her voice became soft and slow. “All your things right where you want them,” she went on, quietly. She sank lower into the sofa, finding a cozy spot for her head, cradling her still-smallish pregnant belly in one arm.  “Nothing too far out of reach. And everything smells right. And your people there with you when you need them, everyone in their usual spot. The sounds the house makes when it’s quiet.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, Donna,” Sherlock said softly, and she wondered if she could trust him alone in the flat. With John’s gun.

She roused herself enough to ask, “You’re safe now?”

“For now, yes.”

“I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

Morning. Smell of bitter, overboiled coffee on the other side of the door. Two of them—the Kid and the Middle Manager--speaking Russian to each other, every now and then switching to a language that sounds like Turkish but isn’t. The third one, the Beast, doesn’t understand Russian.

No ransom demand; Mycroft would have arranged for it to be paid by now. No interrogations; know nothing of use to them. The kidnapping so efficiently executed. Not random. Not amateur. They’re waiting for something: orders, a signal, an event, or to be paid. Or they’re waiting for someone to come. The Mastermind.

Still unsure of exact location (somewhere formerly Soviet), though there are clues to be found: Sounds outside of horses, many men, some machines. Smells of engine oil, fuel, animals. . .and tobacco. It’s a damn tobacco farm. They’re harvesting tobacco. It is Day Thirty-One.

Inventory.

Wounds on wrists caused by manacles, beginning to fester. Oozing and bad-smelling. Not yet life-threatening but could become septic. Jaw bruised and aching from repeated punches; molar loose. Bruises too numerous to count: face (likely, unverifiable without benefit of a mirror), chest (right side), arms (upper and lower, left and right), left hip and side (boot-shaped, lurid purple turning green around the edges, too painful to touch), right knee swollen, patella slightly dislocated? (boot again), welts from lashes on soles of feet nearly healed (still tender when pressed).

Jerry can of water about one-third full (more careful to conserve now; once it was three days empty, with no sign of Them). A chunk of stale, salty bread tossed in day before yesterday—still a bit left but it’s hard as a stone; will use some water to moisten it if it becomes necessary to eat it. Smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes beginning to waft in through the crack over the door. They gamble, argue, joke. The Mother is out there, too, to cook for and shout at them, bringing her smells of meat, spices, cheap perfume she must practically bathe in.

 The Middle Manager unlocks the door and The Mother looks in, shakes her head, murmurs a curse or a prayer. Do quick cost/benefit analysis and decide to risk pleading with her, “ _Pozhaluysta , Mama, pomogi mne_!” She jerks back as if she has gotten an electric shock, scurries from the room, tugging at the scarf tied around her head.

Heavy footfalls, audible breathing: The Beast. Curl up on right side and cover head.

Kick to the gut.

Another.

The Beast stalks in a semi-circle. Boot between the shoulder blades, pressing, pinning. Face to the floor, chest on bent arms as bound hands nestle between shoulder and neck. The Beast leans harder into his boot. Huge, work-roughened hand grabs at left hand, wraps around middle and ring fingers, yanks back with a jerk.

The pain is exquisite. A flash of lightning behind closed eyes instantly flooded with tears. A driving agony radiating up the arm. Wave of nausea. Peripheral vision closing down to a pinpoint as brain tries to shut out pain through loss of consciousness. The Beast gives a heaving twist with an effort that makes him grunt. Shrieking sound in the ears. No, not in the ears. From the throat, the voice. The Beast lifts his boot. Struggle to kneel.

Vomit.

The Beast snuffles, horks, spits. Wet lump of mucous slides down neck, slithers down back. Door opens, shuts, locks. Heave and gasp. Sob. Examine fingers: two obvious dislocations, fractures likely. Already swollen twice normal size. Clear mouth of remaining vomit, sink down and rest cheek on cool cement. Tears run over nose, drip onto floor.

_Sherlock sought and found a cool spot on the pillow as he and John moved against each other lazily, stretching and humming and swimming to the surface of wakefulness as the daylight spilling in through the window coaxed them from sleep. John nuzzled up to Sherlock’s ear, kissed it, breathed onto it--warm and moist, then cool on the inhalation. He whispered, sounding awed, mildly puzzled: You say the damnedest things. Sherlock did not ask what he meant. People assumed Sherlock was broken: unemotional, insensitive, apathetic. And it was fine that they thought so; it made things easier, saved time. The truth of Sherlock, though, was this: he had compartmentalized emotion so that it would not get in the way of The Work. Because emotion was unpredictable, overwhelming, and Sherlock had a vague sense that if he allowed himself to feel unrestrainedly, the result would be like a cork shooting from a bottle—a colossal mess, contents irretrievable, impossible to stop up again. Crime scenes were shocking, revolting, potentially heartbreaking. Full of the bloody horror of the evil that men do to bodies that are fragile and soft and all-too-easily burnt, broken, rent, and penetrated. Love affairs were all-consuming, distracting, demanding. Anger clouded judgment and gave over all higher brain functioning to a simpler, false choice of Fight or Flight. Better--Sherlock had long ago decided--to keep the cork in, and not risk the flood; so he let himself feel almost nothing, most of the time. But Sherlock was not broken (not in the way people thought, anyway). And the evidence of that was a near-ceaseless cascade of words spilling from his lips in the darkness: with Sherlock’s eyes closed and his body thrumming with hunger and heat; with John’s hands and lips and tongue on him there. . and there. . .and there. . . In those moments Sherlock’s every breath carried with it a torrid tumble of irretrievable, unstoppable words that bubbled up from his churning gut, his bursting heart, without interference from his critical brain. Yes. . .yes. . . I’ve never ached like this, it’s delicious; you are perfect; I am desperate; you linger beneath the surface of my every thought; please never stop kissing me  there. . .and there. . .and there. . .you make me real, god never leave me, I want you, I need you, please let me, I love you. Sherlock lifted John’s wrist to his lips, kissed it. Every morning brought a new day, a new danger. But in the dark, flush with emotion, with John. . .Safe._

III. SHATTERED

John emerged from the bath pressing a tiny square of toilet tissue to a bloody spot on his jaw.

“Sherlock, I swear, if you use my razor again—“

“Hm?”

“I’ll have you.”

Sherlock was in his bedroom, buttoning his shirt cuffs. He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Is that right,” Sherlock said, in a tone John recognized right down to his fly. “You’ll _have_ me?”

John nodded, once, and confirmed, “Indeed I will. I’ll have you.”

“Promises, promises,” Sherlock sighed, blasé.

John took a step forward, gripped Sherlock’s chin between his thumb and fingers, tilted his head back and to the side, baring Sherlock’s throat. Sherlock easily acquiesced with a quiet gasp. John leaned forward, pressed his nose against Sherlock’s neck just above his collar and inhaled upward along its length, to a spot just below his jutting jaw.

“ _Avignon_ ,” Sherlock said.

“I know. I like it.”

“I know.”

John snaked an arm around Sherlock’s waist; his hand landed on Sherlock’s arse and pulled him close. “I’ve a mind to have you right now,” he breathed against Sherlock’s throat. John turned Sherlock’s captive jaw this way and that, sizing up the angles and planes of his face in the evening light. Sherlock’s eyes were heavy-lidded, half closed.

“Have me right here?” Sherlock murmured.

“Mm.” John stroked his thumb roughly across Sherlock’s bottom lip, tugging it to the side.

“And where else might you have me?” Sherlock challenged.

The top button of Sherlock’s shirt was open; John worked at the second button with one hand while the other held Sherlock’s pelvis firmly against his own. He started to guide Sherlock backward, toward the bed.

“Oh, now, I can think of lots of places,” John told him. He pressed Sherlock back onto the mattress, straddled his hips. John leaned down and grazed his mouth against Sherlock’s, teasing. Sherlock’s lips parted slightly beneath his. “Maybe in an alley. Up against a wall.”

Sherlock’s eyes were closed; he lifted his chin, his mouth seeking John’s. He moaned.

“Or in the back of a taxi.”

Sherlock’s hands reached for John’s neck and the back of his head, pulling down, greedy mouth wide open for John’s kiss. John easily caught Sherlock’s wrists in one hand and held them off to the side. Sherlock made a frustrated whimper that pleased John. His free hand went to work on another of Sherlock’s shirt buttons.

“That room in the palace where you sat beside me wrapped in your sheet, you tease.”

Eyes still shut tight, Sherlock smiled crookedly.

“Pleased with yourself, are you?” John challenged. He moved his body atop Sherlock’s, offering friction with his hip. Sherlock immediately began to rock against him, humming gratefully. John coaxed Sherlock’s shirt front open with his fingers, pressed his mouth to the newly bared skin just below Sherlock’s collar bone. Sherlock sucked in his breath sharply, his wrists still trapped in the circle of John’s hand.

John raised his head to mutter into Sherlock’s ear, “Must be a lab bench somewhere that I could bend you over. . .”

Sherlock moaned:  a long, low, “Oh,” that sent a shiver through John. Sherlock made a cursory struggle to free his wrists from John’s grasp as they kissed frantically, aggressively, but John held him fast.

A voice from downstairs, coming closer. “Oi, you lads! Hope I’m not late.”

Donna. The three of them were having dinner.

“ _Am_ I late?” she called.

She was in the living room; John could hear her sinking onto the sofa, dropping her purse on the floor next to her. John pressed one finger across Sherlock’s mouth to hush him, but Sherlock was still grinding up against John, still sighing and gasping.

“Hush now, or I’ll have you,” John threatened in a husky whisper, smiling wickedly. Sherlock pressed his lips shut, humming, heaving breaths making his nostrils flare.

Donna had switched on the telly. American accents, shouting, arguing.

“Tell me more about the alley,” Sherlock urged in a voice louder than a whisper.

“Shh.”

“Kiss me,” he demanded. “Let’s skip dinner.”

“Sherlock, we have to be quiet,” John urged. In response, Sherlock shifted his body slightly beneath John’s, rocked his hips, let out a groan.

“I can’t be—“ Sherlock mumbled, “You know I—“

John pressed two fingers against Sherlock’s mouth. “Hush,” he whispered. “Christ it’s like being a kid with your parents in the next room.”

Sherlock’s tongue snaked between John’s fingertips and he hummed lasciviously. “I feel sure I could convince you if you’d only free my hands.”

John felt he might laugh at the predicament of trying to get off _quietly_ so his wife down the hall wouldn’t hear them. It was ludicrous. And Sherlock’s petulance didn’t help the situation. But they had an agreement.

“Take me out back near the bins; there are seven unspeakable acts I want you to perform on me.”

“Hush, now, Sherlock. Honestly.” John clamped his palm down over Sherlock’s mouth.

_The Beast’s stinking, filthy hand entirely covering mouth and nose. Manacles around wrists, arms pinned against chest, beneath The Beast’s knee. Kicking; heels beating the floor so hard they are probably bleeding. No air. Panic. Vision blurring at the edges. No air! Dying. The Beast’s eyes full of fire, his cheeks and neck flushed red from effort. Precious brain dulling. . .Dying. . .A shout from outside the door; The Beast is distracted; his grip just slightly loosened. Bite down. Hard._

John bellowed, jumped back and off the bed. In the living room, Donna let out a cry of surprise and then came running. Sherlock cowered into the corner of the mattress, making himself small, hands tangled in his hair—yanking, pulling—protecting his head. He shook so hard the headboard rattled.

“God, what’s happened?” Donna exclaimed. “I didn’t even know you were here.” She surveyed the tableau, trying to make sense.

John’s face was full of fury, though he managed to mostly steady his voice through clenched teeth. “It’s all right, Sherlock. You’re safe.” His tone was not reassuring. He cradled his injured hand; blood streamed down his wrist.

Surmising what might have happened, Donna said to John, “Go take care of that; I’ll look after him.”

John--full of rushing adrenaline and frustration--protested, “You shouldn’t have to look after him.”

“It’s all right—“

“It’s fucking _not_ all right!” John raged. His arm shot out; the side of his fist bashed the wall, leaving a bloody smear. Sherlock flinched. John took a step toward the bed, leaned down close to Sherlock’s face. “Eight months you’ve been back, and still you refuse to acknowledge that maybe—just maybe—the untouchable genius Sherlock Holmes might need some fucking help with his _broken_ bloody brain. This—“ he shouted, shaking his bleeding, bitten hand in front of Sherlock’s face, though Sherlock still refused to open his eyes, “—is too much for us to handle.”

Donna gripped John’s elbow, tried to guide him out of the room.

“Sweetheart.” She was quiet, firm. “That’s not helping,”

John, still fuming, looked over her shoulder and continued to address the shivering, huddled figure of Sherlock. “ _We_ are all you have—you’ve made damn sure of that—and you are making it bloody impossible to be around you. It’s fucking unfair, is what it is.”

Sherlock wailed, “ _You were killing me!_ ”

“ _I_ fucking _wasn’t_ ,” John shouted back. “That was somebody else, did that to you!”

Donna gave John a shove. “Enough!”

 John threw up his hands, spun on his heel, and left the room. Donna shut the door behind him. She approached Sherlock slowly, holding her hands out to him.

“It’s me, Pet,” she murmured. “Can I come and sit?”

Sherlock nodded slightly, his eyes screwed shut, nervous fingers tangling his hair.

“I’ve got you,” Donna soothed, sitting down beside him. She could feel the mattress vibrating beneath her, Sherlock was shaking so. Every now and then, his teeth chattered against each other; she could hear it.

“Going to touch your hand, Pet,” she said quietly. She stroked the back of his hand, his wrist. “I’ve got you. Sherlock. You’re safe.” She began to work his fingers open, loosening his grip. Sherlock let her take his hand in both of hers. His fingers were wound around with strands of his dark hair.

“Open your eyes and look at me now,” she said. Sherlock hesitated, inhaled forever, finally opened his eyes.

“Just look at my face, Pet.” Donna met Sherlock’s gaze, and though she wanted to give him a smile to reassure him, she found that she couldn’t. “You’re safe now,” she murmured. “You see?” She shifted her eyes as if to show him around the room, “You’re safe at home.” Sherlock’s expression was passing from frantic, to sorrowful, to ashamed. He looked away from her.

“I can’t help—“

“I know you can’t.”

“John’s—“

“John will be fine; nevermind it.” Donna began to unwind strands of hair from between Sherlock’s fingers. “You mustn’t pull out your lovely hair,” she scolded mildly. She stroked her hand over his head, across his cheek. Donna did up the two undone buttons on Sherlock’s shirt; she gave him a small, tight-lipped smile, and Sherlock allowed Donna to take both his hands in hers. She held them on her knee and skimmed her thumbs across his knuckles. “We’ll think of something pleasant to talk about, shall we?” Donna offered.

Sherlock shook his head side to side, slowly. “I can’t.” He leaned toward her until their foreheads were touching, and stayed there. He sighed mightily.

They rested there a few moments, until Donna suddenly let out a quiet, “Ooh,” and lifted one of Sherlock’s hands to the crest of her pregnant belly; she pressed his palm flat against it. They both waited, breath held, until one of the babies gave a kick. And then another kick.

Another kick. And another. Another kick to the gut, to the knee, to the back. (Never the head. Preserving the brain; someday it will be needed again.) A punch to the sternum, backhand slap to the face. Toes crushed beneath boots. Soles of the feet abused with a switch. Back beaten with a belt, a broomstick, a board. Count the blows, aloud: _Odin! Dva! Tri!_ Don’t lose count or it starts again. Two broken toes (healed, one badly). Probably-broken ulna. Dislocated shoulder (passed out from pain of slamming against floor to relocate it). Five fingers broken in eleven places (The Beast’s particular affinity is for breaking fingers). Thirty-two cigarettes extinguished against skin (plus two on tongue, lest it be the eye instead).

A woman in the corner, hands and feet tied with white rope. Good clothes, expensive haircut. Has been crying for three days, alternating wailing and shrieking with long strings of curses and lengthy bouts of begging. They haven’t raped her, haven’t beaten her except to smack her head (no visible bruises, all hidden by her garishly bleached blonde hair) against the wall or floor when their tolerance for her incessant racket has reached its limit. They’ve given her a blanket and more food in a single meal than is usually set down on the dirt floor in two days. She ignores it all, goes on weeping.

Clearly she belongs to someone who will want her returned in decent condition, unused, unscarred. Probably a husband--a gangster or politician—who wants her taught a lesson because she cheats or spends too much money, talks too much, won’t listen.

Say: _There is a man in Isfana, if you can get there, who can give you a new name, papers, everything you need._ Say: _He will save you from your husband._ Say: _Tell him this name: Mycroft Holmes—will you remember?_

She goes on crying, never replies. Stupid, stupid. Willfully stupid. She could be saved, if only she would listen. Ironic.

Say: _At least give me your blanket._ She moans; her face contorts, wide-mouthed, bawling. Say: _If they were going to kill you they’d have already done it!_ She shrieks. Shout _: For the love of all that is holy, SHUT UP!_ She wails, _nyet! nyet! nyet!_ Struggle closer to her.

Kick her.

She sobs, rolling on the floor, stricken, shocked.

Kick her again.

Move away, turn back on her. She snivels, weeps more quietly, but still won’t stop crying. It is the two-hundred, seventy-fourth day.

_When Sherlock was twenty-three, there was a man—a boxer—with the outline of a bird tattooed in the web between his thumb and forefinger. Sherlock liked his close-shorn hair where it met his neck, and the coarse way he spoke about his mother, and the muscles of his calves. He had a room with a squeaky single bed and a loud stereo that drowned out their sounds. He drank in pubs and started fights and vomited in the street, and he leaned heavily on Sherlock’s shoulder as they staggered back to his room—quiet, wake the neighbors and the landlady’ll have ya--where Sherlock took off his shoes and wiped his face with a cool, damp flannel, and lay down beside him to make sure he kept breathing all night. He fed Sherlock all manner of pills, each new variety an experiment Sherlock forgot to record data for, and had to repeat. He shoplifted and smoked cigarettes and his knuckles bled. He pressed a needle so delicately into Sherlock’s skin it was like a sighing breath, a flutter of eyelashes. He always fixed Sherlock first, even if there wasn’t enough and he got sick. He lost (in chronological order): most of his fights, too much of his weight, and all of his money. He got an abscess on the back of his hand near the tattoo of the bird, and the abscess almost killed him. Sherlock nursed him, and he whispered in Sherlock’s ear and stole money from Sherlock’s wallet and bought three days’ worth, and the three days’ worth killed him. Sherlock kissed him, cursed him, went out to find a fix._

 

IV. SALVATION

“Brought someone to see you, Sherlock,” Donna singsonged as she breezed into Sherlock’s hospital room with little Wil on her hip. She planted him on his bottom on the bed beside Sherlock, made sure the rail was secure and dropped her bag on the nearby reclining chair. Sherlock beamed at the toddler, just a few weeks away from the twins’ first birthday.

“Hello, Brilliant Boy,” he said, and Wil began to climb toward Sherlock’s face, tugging on his hospital gown for leverage. Wil paused to wave hello and looked toward Donna to reassure himself she was observing his brilliance. Donna kissed Sherlock on the top of his head.

“Amy insists on walking from the lift; John will be along with her eventually,” Donna said. “How’s the hand feeling today?” She arranged herself on the foot of the bed, in arm’s reach of her clambering son, who was sitting now in the crook of Sherlock’s arm and shaking the hospital gown vigorously in one balled fist.

Sherlock lifted his bandaged left hand slightly off the bed, away from any risk of being jostled by baby Wil. “Surgery went well, I’m told. They say perhaps just one more after this. No pain, of course; there’s morphine in that bag.” He motioned with his eyes toward a drip hanging beside the bed.

“Up to eleven, no doubt,” Donna teased. Sherlock only looked knowing. “When will they let you come home?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

John came in then, little Amy holding one of his fingers in each of her hands as she walked just in front of him. Her wispy strawberry-blonde hair was clamped together into a single curl held tight by a bow on top of her head.

“Well, someone’s quite pleased with herself!” Donna grinned.

Sherlock said, “Of course she’s pleased with herself, why wouldn’t she be? She’s a genius.”

John protested mildly, “Sherlock, they’re probably not geniuses.”

“It’s too early to decode the data, John. If only we’d had more time we could have set up a control group. Isn’t that right, my boy?” Wil blew Sherlock kisses—mwah mwah mwah—against his chubby hand. “I’ll never get it published without a double-blind study. Anyway, give her here,” Sherlock demanded, and John settled Amy beside him.

“Sherlock’s home day after tomorrow,” Donna told John.

“Can’t bring the morphine, you know; you might not want to rush it,” John commented.

Amy and Wil were crawling happily all over Sherlock.

“You’re all right there?” Donna asked, patting his shin through the blankets.

“Wonderful.”

“Are we sure he can’t bring the morphine when he comes home?” Donna asked John, with a raised eyebrow. “He’s being so charming.” She tried to get the twins’ attention as she used some of the sign language Sherlock had been teaching them and said, “Gentle, now, you two. Gentle.” She signed _gentle_ and used their special name-sign for Sherlock, _tall-uncle_.

“Aha! Look at that!” Sherlock exclaimed. The twins were gesturing furiously and patting Sherlock’s hospital gown; their faces showed confusion and not a little disappointment.

 _Genius-uncle pocket!_ they signed. Clearly Sherlock’s own name-sign for himself had trumped the one Mummy and Daddy used. It was a ritual of theirs to slip their hands into the pockets of Sherlock’s jacket or coat to find little things he seemed always to have hidden there just for them to find—a piece of satin ribbon, a slightly-squashed origami frog, a tiny flashlight—and now they could not find Sherlock’s pockets. _Where pocket? Where pocket, genius-uncle?_

“Oh, you precious jewels,” Sherlock beamed at them. “No pockets today, I’m afraid.”

Wil pointed across the room and signed, _pocket cupboard_. Amy looked soberly at where Wil was pointing, and joined in. _Pocket cupboard_.

“You think my jacket is in the cupboard?” Sherlock asked, eyes narrowed, challenging their conviction as he looked from one to the other.  The twins both began to nod their heads and clap. _Cupboard! Pocket!_

John crossed to the little wardrobe and opened it. Inside hung Sherlock’s suit and shirt, his shoes lined up neatly on a shelf below. John looked toward Donna.

“OK, so maybe they are a _little bit_ genius,” he said, with a shake of his head.

“Bring it here, John,” Sherlock said, then added, “If you don’t mind.”

“Right, I’m writing you a prescription, myself.” John took the jacket off the hanger and brought it over to the bed, kissing Sherlock on the cheek while he was there. “Hello, by the way. Glad you didn’t die on the table.”

Sherlock smiled in reply, and used his one good hand to arrange the jacket across his chest. The twins went busily about the work of searching the pockets.

A nurse knocked twice on the open door and marched through to a small sink, where she began to scrub her hands. She said cheerfully, “Whole family’s here for a visit this afternoon, is it, Mr Holmes? Aren’t you lucky.”

The babies had found a pair of chopsticks in the inside pocket of Sherlock’s jacket and John and Donna watched closely, ready to intervene in case one got too close to an eye or ear, as the twins examined and tested out this most recent discovery.

Sherlock, still broadly smiling (morphine dialed down to almost nothing), said, “I am very lucky indeed.”

 _You lucky fellow_ , The Kid says. He sets down a square plastic bowl of soup on the packed dirt floor. Ignore it. Ignore him.  _Soup’s got meat in it_ , The Kid says. He lingers near the door. He probably thinks his bootleg American basketball trainers are the real thing; he keeps them so clean. He must be the only one here or he would not be lingering; he cannot let them think he is sentimental, soft. _You need more water?_ The Kid says. He crosses to the can and checks it; it is nearly full.

Have not eaten in three days. On Day Three Thirteen: The Beast. Eyes full of fiery murder, kneeling on at least two bruised ribs, giant hand smothering, smothering. Now it is Day Three Seventeen. No hope left. Exhausted. Bleeding (always bleeding). It’s finished. Surrender.

The Kid comes closer, crouches down, forearms on thighs. _Something wrong with you?_ he asks. _Here._ He drags the water can closer, lifts it, offering. _You need to drink._ Raise eyes to meet his gaze. He looks startled, spooked. He looks away. _Anyway, you need water,_ he says. He stands.

He falls. A slumped, awkward heap. His head hits the floor with a dull thud. His eyes are open. There is blood inside his slack mouth.

An explosion of noise—stomping feet, shouting, trucks outside. A helicopter in the distance. Uniformed men wearing gas masks or with scarves tied around their faces so only their eyes show swarm into the tiny room carrying guns, bolt cutters, welding torches. The high, narrow window shatters and a helmet appears there, a mask. There are three of them at work on the chains. Another one crouches nearby. His eyes are blue; the rest of his face is covered. He is shouting something. Puzzle over it, eventually figure out why he sounds so odd. He is speaking English.

 _Are you Sherlock Holmes?!_ he shouts. _Sir, you have to tell me: are you Sherlock Holmes?_

Nod. The chains are cut. The blue-eyed man shouts, _Can you walk?_

Nod again. The blue-eyed man grips an elbow. Try to stand. Have not done so in so long. Stumble. Fall into the arms of the blue-eyed man. Floating, carried, through the squat, ill-fitting door, then through another door, outside. The sky is enormous, terrifying.

Rescued. Going home. Baker Street.

Home.

John.

_Sherlock lead the way upstairs into the flat. John looked around, insulted the place, mildly protested against the mess and the skull on the mantle. Sherlock made a cursory effort at straightening up, futilely tossing things from one pile to another. Mrs Hudson offered that there was another bedroom upstairs; she winked and made a joke. John fluffed a pillow, sank into a beaten, bordering-on-ugly chair, staking his claim to it. John was skeptical, challenging, making a show of putting up a fight. Of course Sherlock already knew what John's eventual answer would be, but he could let John ease into it. A flurry then, and here was DI Lestrade, asking Sherlock to help. John sat by, silently seething, left behind. But then Sherlock appeared again in the doorway, eyes widening expectantly as he extended his invitation. Without a single moment’s hesitation, John said, “Oh god yes.”_

-END-

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlock's cologne is Incense d'Avignon by Comme des Garcons. Just in case you wondered. :-)


End file.
